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The new deal is part of a larger initiative to transform Penn State Health into a hub of telehealth services that cater to patients in Central Pennsylvania. 

Valita Fredland most recently served as chief privacy officer and counsel at IU Health. In her new post, Fredland will serve as vice president, general counsel and privacy officer.

New species of the malicious code are found in the wild on a regular basis. Here are some of the newest types of ransomware.  

Cybercriminals have set their sights on healthcare. Ransomware is the new normal. And many providers are approaching security all wrong. CIOs, CISOs, ethical hackers and other experts point the way forward. 

UC Health – the flagship University of Cincinnati Medical Center, as well as 167 of its affiliated practices – has reached the Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model. HIMSS Analytics developed the EMRAM in 2005. Its eight stages (0-7) track a hospital’s implementation and use of health IT applications. In 2011, it launched the ambulatory model, meant to evaluate the progress and impact of EMRs for ambulatory facilities – physician practices, outpatient centers and specialty clinics – owned by hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics Database. Only 4.2 percent of more than 5,400 U.S. hospitals in HIMSS Analytics' database have attained Stage 7; just 7.9 percent of more than 34,000 ambulatory clinics have scored a Stage 7 Ambulatory Award. [Also: Benchmarks: Stage 7 success stories] UC Health, the University of Cincinnati’s affiliated health system is the region’s only academic health system.  It includes University of Cincinnati Medical Center, three additional hospitals, and the University of Cincinnati Physicians, Cincinnati’s largest multi-specialty practice group with more than 700 board-certified clinicians and surgeons. John H. Daniels, global vice president of HIMSS Analytics' healthcare advisory services group, said UC Health "has gone above and beyond the EMRAM Stage 7 criteria. They have already extended the closed-loop medication administration process to their infusion clinic and for interventional radiology cases. Combined with a strong population health program, the UC Health team is making a real difference in their community." "This accomplishment is due to our commitment to improved patient outcomes through the expanded use of information technology," said Jay Brown, UC Health's senior vice president and chief information officer, in a statement. "As the region’s only academic health system, we are surrounded by innovators and visionary leaders who have recognized the importance of leveraging these tools," he added. "The HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 Award highlights our dedication to delivering the highest quality of care and enhancing the experience of our patients."

Aurora, Colorado-based UCHealth has partnered again with LeanTaaS, a Silicon Valley-based predictive analytics startup. It will implement iQueue for Operating Rooms, which combines lean principles with advanced data tools for operating room utilization improvements. The flagship University of Colorado Hospital is the first of the system's five hospitals to deploy iQueue for Operating Rooms; UCHealth plans to integrate the platform at its other hospitals within the next year. The iQueue platform taps into UCHealth's Epic EHR and analyzes OR usage patterns to determine how to reallocate time to surgeons for improved efficiency. There's also a mobile feature that connects surgeons to the platform with real-time data for OR block management. "Sometimes it's really hard to just look at data and say, what do I do with this? How do I make the data work for the organization?" said University of Colorado Hospital Chief Information Officer Steve Hess. "The data may be there, but we all need to ask ourselves, is the data creating the story that we need? [Also: Analytics works wonders in Colorado] "With its machine learning and tools pushing data to surgeons, these are the changes that LeanTaaS is doing that will make the difference," Hess said. "This is actually retrospective and predictive. Not only will it tell us about OR usage, but it can also tell us what's happening and where it's going." By deploying this platform into the complex OR scheduling challenges facing UCHealth, the organization hopes to tackle capacity issues, improve OR utilization and workflow, according to Hess. Moving the needle just 1 percent, on one OR room can contribute to the bottom line and improve efficiencies, he said. "The combination of analytics, real-time data and block release and assignment exchange platform for smartphones: We see it as a game changer," Hess said. "It's too early to tell what kind of utilization we'll see, but we do expect this to be extremely positive." This is the second time UCHealth has turned to LeanTaas to improve its hospital operations. This past fall, the health system deployed LeanTaaS' iQueue for Infusion Centers across its entire system. Its success drove the decision to bring the technology into its operating room scheduling, Hess said. Twitter: @JessieFDavis Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

The collaboration aims to help health plans more easily scale both fee-for-service and value-based models.

Long-term care, out-of-pocket spending, and even dental care are among the challenges that America faces in the next few years but Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are not saying nearly enough about their intentions in those areas. 

Veterans are still waiting to see a doctor. Two years ago, vets were waiting a long time for care at Veterans Affairs clinics. At one facility in Phoenix, for example, veterans waited on average 115 days for an appointment. Adding insult to injury, some VA schedulers were told to falsify data to make it looks like the waits weren’t that bad. The whole scandal ended up forcing the resignation of the VA secretary at the time, Eric Shinseki. Congress and the VA came up with a fix: Veterans Choice, a $10 billion program. Veterans received a card that was supposed to allow them to see a non-VA doctor if they were either more than 40 miles away from a VA facility or they were going to have to wait longer than 30 days for a VA provider to see them. The problem was, Congress gave them only 90 days to set up the system. Facing that deadline, the VA turned to two private companies to administer the program — helping veterans get an appointment with a doctor and then working with the VA to pay that doctor. It sounds like a simple idea but it’s not working. Wait times have gotten worse. There are 70,000 more vets waiting at least a month for an appointment than there were at this time last year. The VA claims there has been a massive increase in demand for care, but the problem has more to do with the way Veterans Choice was set up. It is confusing and complicated. Vets don’t understand it, doctors don’t understand it and even VA administrators admit they can’t always figure it out. Veterans face delays and worry This is playing out in a big way in Montana. That state has more veterans per capita than any state besides Alaska. This winter Montana Sen. Jon Tester sent his staff to meet with veterans across the state. Bobby Wilson showed up to a meeting in Superior. He’s a Navy vet who served in Vietnam and is trying to get his hearing aids fixed. Wilson is mired in bureaucracy. “The VA can’t do it in seven months, eight months? Something’s wrong,” he said. “Three hours on the phone,” trying to make an appointment. “Not waiting,” he said, “talking for three hours trying to get this thing set up for my new hearing aids.” [See also: GAO: Veterans finding VA care hard to access.] Tony Lapinski, a former aircraft mechanic, has also spent his time on the phone, with Health Net, one of the two contractors the VA selected to help Veterans Choice patients. “You guys all know the Health Net piano?” he said. “They haven’t changed the damn elevator music in over a year!” That elicits knowing chuckles from the audience. Later during an interview, he said when he gets through to a person, “They are the nicest boiler room telemarketers you have ever spoken to. But that doesn’t get your medical procedure taken care of.” Lapinski has an undiagnosed spinal growth and he’s worried. “Some days I wake up and go, ‘Am I wasting time, when I could be on chemotherapy or getting a surgery?’ ” he said. “Or six months from now when I still haven’t gotten it looked at and I start having weird symptoms and they say, ‘Boy, that’s cancer! If you had come in here six months ago, we probably could have done something for ya, but it’s too late now!’ ” Lapinski finally got to a neurosurgeon, but he didn’t exactly feel like his Choice card was carte blanche. Doctors, it turns out, are waiting, too — for payment, he said. “You get your procedure done, and you find out that two months later the people haven’t been paid. They have got $10 billion that they have to spend, and they are stiffing doctors for 90 days, 180 days, maybe a year!” said Lapinski. “No wonder I can’t get anyone to take me seriously on this program.” He said he gets it. He used to do part-time work fixing cars, and he would still take jobs from people who had taken more than 90 days to pay him or bounced a check. But he did so reluctantly. “I had a list of slow-pay customers,” he said. “I might work for them again, but everybody else came before them. So why would it be any different with these health care professionals?” Hospitals, clinics and doctors across the country have complained about not getting paid, or only paid very slowly. Some have just stopped taking Veterans Choice patients altogether, and Montana’s largest health care network, Billings Clinic, doesn’t accept any VA Choice patients. Not cool, said Montana Sen. Jon Tester, of Health Net and other contractors. “The payment to the providers is just laziness,” Tester said. “I’m telling you, it’s just flat laziness. These folks turn in their bills, and if they’re not paid in a timely manner, that’s a business model that’ll cause you to go broke pretty quick.” The VA now admits the rushed timeframe led to decisions that resulted in a nightmare for some patients. Health Net declined to be interviewed for this story. But in a statement, the company said that VA has recently made some beneficial changes that are helping streamline Veterans Choice. For example, the VA no longer demands a patient’s medical records be returned to VA before they pay. Meanwhile, though, veterans continue to wait. “If I knew half of what I knew now back then when I was just a kid, I would’ve never went in the military,” said Bobby Wilson. “I see how they treat their veterans when they come home.” Scheduling lags also irk the doctors’ offices and the VA And there’s another whole side to the coin. Doctors are frustrated in dealing with another government health care bureaucracy. In Gastonia, North Carolina, Kelly Coward dials yet another veteran with bad news. “I’m just calling to let you know that I still have not received your authorization for Health Net federal. As soon as I get it, I will give you a call and let you know that we have it and we can go over some surgery dates,” she told a veteran. Coward works at Carolina Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Center, a practice that sees about 200 veterans. Dealing with Health Net has become a consuming part of her job. “I have to fax and re-fax, and call and re-call. And they tell us that they don’t receive the notes. And that’s just every day. And I’m not the only one here that deals with it,” she said. Carolina Orthopaedic’s business operations manager, Toscha Willis, is used to administrative headaches — that’s part of the deal with health care — but she’s never seen something like this. She said it takes, “multiple phone calls, multiple re-faxing of documentation, being on hold one to two hours at a time to be told we don’t have anything on file. But the last time we called about it they had it, but it was in review. You know, that’s the frustration.” It can take three to four months just to line up an office visit. The delays have become a frustration within the VA, too. Tymalyn James is a nurse care manager at the VA clinic in Wilmington, North Carolina. She said Choice has made the original problem worse. When she and her colleagues are swamped and refer someone outside the VA, it’s supposed to help the veteran get care more quickly. But James said the opposite is happening. “The fact is that people are waiting months and months, and it’s like a, we call it the black hole,” she said. “As long as the Choice program has gone on, we’ve had progressively longer and longer wait times for Choice to provide the service, and we’ve had progressively less and less follow through on the Choice end with what was supposed to be their managing of the steps.” The follow-through is lacking in two ways. The first is the lengthy delay in approving care. And after that’s finally resolved, there’s a long delay in getting paid for the care. At least 30 doctors’ offices across North Carolina are dealing with payment problems, some that have lasted more than a year. Carolina Orthopaedic’s CEO Chad Ghorley said his practice is getting paid after it provides the care. It’s the lengthy delay on the front end that burdens his staff and, he worries, puts veterans at risk. He’s a veteran himself. “The federal government has put the Band-Aid on it when there’s such a public outcry to how the veterans are taking care of, all right?” he said. “Well, they’ve got the Band-Aid on it to get the national media off their backs. But the wound is still open, the wound is still there.” Those experiences for both veterans and providers are typical. Congress is now working on a solution to the original solution, a bill is expected to clear Congress by the end of the month. This story is part of a partnership that includes Montana Public Radio, WFAE, NPR’s Back at Base project and Kaiser Health News. The article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

The Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities states that women must be treated equally to men and bans discrimination based on race, color, national origin, age or disability and, for the first time, gender.